Credibility

Harmony

/ Jeff Hora / Leave a comment
Graphic created by CoPilot AI

OK, so yesterday I finished the Think Indigenous audio book by Doug Good Feather. There was a lot of stuff there that I had heard some version of before, mostly from Stephen Charleston – he’s a member of the Choctaw Nation and Good Feather a member of the Lakota Nation. I ponder the similarities between Christian mysticism, Buddhism, Sufi and the recorded beliefs of many Indigenous People. I have the Book of the Hopi by Frank Waters that I want to read soon before my eyes get any worse!

In a graphic from the audio book’s companion PDF a couple of versions of the medicine wheel are presented. The first layer out from center has four – I forget the collection’s name – core beliefs/virtues. They are Joy, Love, Harmony, and Wisdom.

The word harmony struck me in this context. I’m sure others have waxed eloquent on harmony in relationships, with oneself, and with the universe around us. The sparkling light for me in that analogy is a consideration of the music composer.

Having written some music back in the day, I relate: large ensemble work, “experimental/electronic” stuff, solo instruments, chamber groups, a couple of vocal pieces, and plenty of tunes for different sizes of jazz and pop ensembles. The situation, creative context, and the music in my head all worked together – although it sometimes felt like “conspired” – to create the harmonies I needed. No single boiler-plate harmony would fit each of these.

The context was multi-dimensional. The lines of the notes, their interplay – or lack thereof – , how naked – or dense, or any version of consonant or dissonant – the harmony would be, the effect within the ensemble and that played out, where the line/ensemble had been/was now/will be. Those points just scratch the surface. It was a terrific experience that I hold dear.

So, in taking this viewpoint about harmony and how that virtue shows up in me and in the world from moment to moment is where my heart and head are now. The thing about harmony is the need to have “good ears.” Good composers and arrangers have these, as do musicians who improvise. Listening is key. Carry the line that brings you to the present moment and listen even harder for where the line might go. Then take part in the movement. It may seem obvious, or you might coax the line to head someplace else, near-by or on another planet. Follow that. Even if you screw up, you learn, and maybe you’ll head into a new place that’s REALLY intriguing! It will be awesome!

How Real Is This?

/ Jeff Hora / 1 Comment
Graphic by CoPilot AI

In my recent post “Which part(s) do you see?” I wrote about the existence of the many, many facets of pretty much everything: people, events, clothing, times, works of art and science, and so on. The more facets you see and understand to be integral to what you’re seeing, the harder it becomes to truly describe it.

A received a comment on that post about how much of challenge it is to REALLY know someone, whether a spouse, a parent, a child, a BFF, and others. People have so many facets that, in paying attention and time in evolving the relationship, real description becomes almost insurmountable. There’s that….

I started thinking, however, about the more or less opposite challenge. I have several friends, and one in particular, who are writers, mostly of novels. I also have a couple of friends who are journalists. Each of these callings create a problem for the writer (going forward, I’ll gather my journalist pals in with the term of writer….). I’ll get to the issue shortly.

First, I want to state that I now understand why so many of the Author forums and pages I have visited over the past several years have discussions surrounding constructing characters in their work. I have certainly read works where the story wasn’t too bad, but the characters were shockingly one-dimensional. Introducing a character is one thing, but fleshing one out to interesting and believable is another entirely.

So the issue is, if a person is a gem who is showing (or not showing) all of their facets, how does an author create a “complete” character without trying to expose so many of the character’s facets that they become virtually indescribable in their writing? I realize that this is both an Art and a Science, and doing it consistently well is a true gift. I take my hat off to all of you writers who work so very hard to do this.

This recognition extends to journalists, too, for a slightly different reason. Journalists are expected to deliver a story (if it’s news…opinion pieces are a bit different) as neutrally as they can. This is completely impossible, but each of them does the best she/he/they can. Why is it so hard? In describing an event, the journalist is directing attention to a facet or two of the event. Trying to illuminate the entire gem is impossible. Plus, in directing attention to the one or two facets immediately creates the message in human minds that those facets are more important than others in the event, which may or may not be true, but, again, there’s only so much a journalist can do. Describing an event as neutrally as possible by including as many facets as are communicable while not obscuring the event is wicked hard.

Directing attention in this way, sadly, is also how stories can mislead and misinform the readers. Those who have agendas, ideologies, axes to grind, things to hide, etc. can look at the gem and choose to highlight different facets that can be woven into a narrative supporting whatever the writer is trying to overtly or covertly support (for example, think of some who write about the world and cherry-pick verses from the Christian bible to support what they want to call out….The Bible is WAAAAAAAY more complex than that….). Being aware of the power of description, the difficulty of expressing near-neutrality and, in other writing, creating those characters in such a way that they are real-ish…these are all skills and abilities that responsible readers can and should cultivate. We need to be aware that we’re only being shown what can be shown in some way that’s comprehensible. Upon consideration, we get to decide if the character drawn is reasonable, or the news story is mostly neutral or skewed. It’s up to us and our big ol’ brains to work through this.